Taishin Financial Holdings Co (台新金控) confirmed yesterday that its president, Lin Keh-hsiao (林克孝), had died in a hiking accident. He died aged 51 and is survived by two children.
Yesterday morning, rescuers resumed their efforts to locate Lin, who slipped off a cliff during a hiking trip in Yilan County on Wednesday, and found his body in the afternoon, the company said.
Yilan County Fire Bureau said rescuers were trying to move Lin’s body from the valley floor back onto the cliff from which he has fallen so that it could be airlifted down the mountain. Because of heavy rainfall in the mountainous area, the fire bureau said it would send a helicopter to airlift the body today.
FAVORITE TRAIL
Lin was climbing Shusuei Mountain (束穗山) in Nanao Township (南澳) with two friends, revisiting an abandoned tribal trail he had fallen in love with. He had published a book detailing the tribal trail and his love for Aboriginal culture and its legends.
“The company will convene a board meeting to pick Lin’s successor,” Taishin Financial deputy spokesman Bingo Lee said by telephone.
The death would not affect the group’s operations, Lee said.
Taishin Financial shares closed unchanged at NT$13.65 yesterday, compared with the TAIEX’s 1.06 percent decline.
Lin, who had a doctorate in economics from the University of Washington, also taught finance at National Taiwan University, where he earned his bachelor’s degree.
“Lin was an amicable and scholarly boss, who was logically sharp at work, yet poetic in private,” Lee said.
Lin hit the hiking trails as often as possible in his free time, a hobby he developed since childhood. He set up a hiking club in high school and has tamed many rugged mountains over the past decades.
During a recent TV interview, Lin said jokingly he might not find his way home one of these days as his hobby led him to increasingly remote and dangerous destinations.
LEGEND
He spent six years exploring the mountains near Nanao Township, lured by an Aboriginal legend about a brave Atayal (泰雅族) girl who fell to her death in a creek while seeing her mentor off to war during Taiwan’s colonial period. Lin proved the existence of a legendary bell erected in commemoration of the girl named Sayon (沙韻) in his book.
“I swear I’ll finish the path that should have been taken by Sanyo home,” he wrote in the book.
“I started with the intent to find the historic sites, but I met new people and learned to appreciate Aboriginal culture ... The locals consider me half Atayal,” Lin said during a recent TV interview.
Under Lin’s stewardship, Taishin Financial quickly emerged unscathed from the global financial crisis and it is now expanding at home and across the Taiwan Strait, including the acquisition of IBT Asset Management Co (台灣工銀投信) which boosted Taishin Securities Investment Trust Co’s (台新投信) market share from 0.75 percent to 2.88 percent.
It is also seeking strategic partners in China to pave the way for Taishin International Bank’s (台新銀行) expansion across the Taiwan Strait.
SILICON VALLEY HUB: The office would showcase Taiwan’s strengths in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and help Taiwanese start-ups connect with global opportunities Taiwan has established an office in Palo Alto, one of the principal cities of Silicon Valley in California, aimed at helping Taiwanese technology start-ups gain global visibility, the National Development Council said yesterday. The “Startup Island Taiwan Silicon Valley hub” at No. 299 California Avenue is focused on “supporting start-ups and innovators by providing professional consulting, co-working spaces, and community platforms,” the council said in a post on its Web site. The office is the second overseas start-up hub established by the council, after a similar site was set up in Tokyo in September last year. Representatives from Taiwanese start-ups, local businesses and
EXPRESSING GRATITUDE: Without its Taiwanese partners which are ‘working around the clock,’ Nvidia could not meet AI demand, CEO Jensen Huang said Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and US-based artificial intelligence (AI) chip designer Nvidia Corp have partnered with each other on silicon photonics development, Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang (黃仁勳) said. Speaking with reporters after he met with TSMC chairman C.C. Wei (魏哲家) in Taipei on Friday, Huang said his company was working with the world’s largest contract chipmaker on silicon photonics, but admitted it was unlikely for the cooperation to yield results any time soon, and both sides would need several years to achieve concrete outcomes. To have a stake in the silicon photonics supply chain, TSMC and
‘DETERRENT’: US national security adviser-designate Mike Waltz said that he wants to speed up deliveries of weapons purchased by Taiwan to deter threats from China US president-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for US secretary of defense, Pete Hegseth, affirmed his commitment to peace in the Taiwan Strait during his confirmation hearing in Washington on Tuesday. Hegseth called China “the most comprehensive and serious challenge to US national security” and said that he would aim to limit Beijing’s expansion in the Indo-Pacific region, Voice of America reported. He would also adhere to long-standing policies to prevent miscalculations, Hegseth added. The US Senate Armed Services Committee hearing was the first for a nominee of Trump’s incoming Cabinet, and questions mostly focused on whether he was fit for the
INDUSTRIAL CLUSTER: In Germany, the sector would be developed around Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co’s plant, and extend to Poland and the Czech Republic The Executive Yuan’s economic diplomacy task force has approved programs aimed at bolstering the nation’s chip diplomacy with Japan and European nations. The task force in its first meeting had its operational mechanism and organizational structure confirmed, with Premier Cho Jung-tai (卓榮泰) the convener, and Vice Premier Cheng Li-chiun (鄭麗君) and Minister Without Portfolio Ma Yung-cheng (馬永成) the deputy conveners. Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) would be the convener of the task force’s strategy group in charge of policy planning for economic diplomacy. The meeting was attended by the heads of the National Development Council, the Ministry of Economic Affairs, the
RSS